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The paper focuses on understanding the agriculture landscape i.e. shifting cultivation and permanent agriculture land in the South Garo district of Meghalaya. The association of the district’s agriculture landscape with climatic factors and other topographical factors were analysed. This analysis was complemented with studying the district’s history and social factors that shaped its agriculture landscape. Climatic factors chosen were precipitation, elevation and temperature, coupled with other natural and anthropogenic factors such as soil type and forest fires. For determining agriculture landscape of South Garo, Baghmara block was chosen, as it is the district headquarters and shifting cultivation was found to be practiced in every village of the block. These factors for South Garo district had been compared with that of East Khasi district, for the reason that the districts vary greatly in terms of climate and landscape. Previous literatures suggest the amount of shifting cultivation in East Khasi district is much less in comparison to that of South Garo. Studying the role of climatic factors will give insights about how a place’s climate shapes its agriculture landscape. Methodology adopted for the study involved collection, preprocessing, operations and analysis of spatial data. Primary software used for analysis were ESRI’s ARCMAP 10.8 and ESRI’s ARCGIS PRO 2.5. Data analysis was carried out using R Studio and data visualization was done using Visme. For analyzing socio-economic parameters extensive secondary research was carried out.
Results: Elevation in shifting cultivation areas in Baghmara was found more than that in permanent agriculture areas. Mean elevation was around 320mm for agriculture cropland, while it was about 550 mm for shifting cultivation areas. In terms of precipitation, for agriculture cropland the precipitation was clustered around 1700 mm, while for shifting cultivation areas it was found be spread out between 1500 mm and 1800 mm. Dominant soil type for every agriculture landscape were variations of reddish yellow brown sandy soil. Baghmara’s every agriculture class (i.e. permanent and shifting cultivations) lay between a mean annual average temperature of 17 °C and 18 °C. 75% more shifting cultivation pioints, as compared to permanent agriculture land were found to be in close proximity of forest fires. Secondary literature suggested that the time required for regeneration of fallow in South Garo Hills was much less than other regions in India, making it a habitable place for shifting cultivation.
As far as socio-economic factors are concerned. Two broad reasons have been figured out that make this practice still very popular in the region. First is the philosophy of people, who are reluctant to give in to the uncertainities of market that comes with planting cash crops. Garos find greater peace in living on sustenance and sharing their produce in terms of crisis, as it brings them together and imbibes in them, a sense of community. This was coupled with failure of other alternatives. For example, when involved in coffee plantations, cultivators had to wait for an year to get their revenue. This did not go well with the tribes that are very much used to living on sustenance. Second reason is the series of events that have revived this method even after much control and criticism. Examples of such events are the Bengal famine in the pre-independence time and the introduction of community forest post independence (more on this in analysis and conclusion).
Keywords: GIS, shifting cultivation, agriculture, elevation, precipitation, temperature, forest fire, policy.
